A Flexifloat S-70 Self-Elevating Platform (SEP), owned by Brian Perry Ltd., a subsidiary of Fletcher Construction Company, New Zealand, has been hard at work over a 15-month period in support of pile driving operations for the NZ$65 million construction of a new deep water port for log exports at Marsden Point, Whangarei. The port in northern New Zealand is scheduled to receive its first ship in June 2002.

Brian Perry Ltd. is the largest piling and foundation contractor in New Zealand and maintains one of the largest construction crane fleets in the country. The company recently won the New Zealand Power Crane Association's "Project of the Year Award for 2001" for the efficient mobilization and use of a large pile-driving fleet to drive steel H-piles at Auckland's sewage treatment plant upgrade.

Perry's Flexifloat jack-up barge, Tuapapa, is the only one of its type in New Zealand, and is capable of supporting a 100T crane working at its rated capacity in 18 meters of water.

Operating a 90 metric ton capacity crane on the Flexifloat platform and using a PTC 50HF vibrohammer, Perry drove over 3,000 metric tons of 30-meter YZ36 sheet piles, the largest driven in the Southern Hemisphere. The sheets were driven in 12 meters of water as a retaining wall for the 400-meter long new wharf. Following the driving of sheetpile, 130 steel cylindrical piles up to 45 meters long were driven from the FlexiSEP to support the wharf deck.